Never Gonna Be Alone
by letmefallasleep
Summary: Hyde's thoughts as Jackie lays asleep in his arms after her dad gets arrested, and her mother abandons her. Why does the pygmy sized brunette mean so much to him? Implied past abuse and neglect.


Quick little one shot, takes place during the time that Jackie is sneaking into the Formans at night, and explains why I think Hyde was with Jackie.

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><p>Hyde sighed as Jackie nestled herself further into his arms. His cot in the back room of the Formans' basement wasn't quite big enough for the two teenagers to sleep there together without someone falling off the edge, so Hyde pulled her a little closer, smiling as she snuggled even further into his body.<p>

It was nice. To have somebody trust him. To have somebody want him to keep them safe. Hell, for him to feel like he could keep her safe; that in and of itself was something.

The poor kid had been devastated when her dad got arrested. She was a daddy's girl (even though Daddy had few dozen other 'girls' around town, and never spent anytime with his only kid), and to have her father taken away had thrown her into a tailspin. All the security she'd ever had was gone in an instant.

And then her mother. It'd taken Jackie almost a week before she'd told her boyfriend that Pamela Burkhart wasn't home yet. It'd taken an hour of him nudging and prying before she'd finally caved, and told him she didn't think her mother was coming home.

Hyde tightened his grip, feeling that surge of anger rushing through him again. It was one thing for _his_ mother to abandon him: Edna drank like a fish, took more drugs than were known to man, and half the time couldn't remember her own name, much less the fact that she had a son. So it hadn't really come as any surprise that she'd just gotten in a tractor trailer with some guy, and disappeared for good. It didn't excuse what she did (_like __**hell**__ it excused what she did)_ but Steven had known it was coming. Knew his mother barely remembered he was alive nine times out of ten, or that all ten of those times she was drunk, high, or both.

But Pamela... She didn't have that excuse. It boiled down to her good time was more important than her sixteen year old daughter sitting home alone by herself, with no money, food, or the common sense on how to get either one.

Hyde almost chuckled before he remembered the sleeping girl in his arms. Jackie was clueless sometimes. Most of the time, really. She had a checkbook, but didn't know anything about it other than signing her name to the bottom. Turned out that her father Paul had been putting a weekly allowance in the account... And obviously he'd fallen a little behind on his allowance payments since he was, _oh yeah,_ in jail. It'd taken four days of shopping, trying to make herself feel better after her dad's arrest, to spend every dime she'd had in the account. And she had no way of accessing the other accounts without her father or mother.

It was funny; he'd always thought his family's problems had come from being poor. Or at the very least, had exasperated the problem. But Jackie's parents ignored her just as much as Edna had ignored Hyde.

And they'd both turned to what they knew for comfort: him, drugs; her, money.

But Hyde knew how to keep himself alive, safe, and fed. Even without money. Jackie was clueless. He'd tried taking her to the grocery store with him, just to get her out of the house while he picked up a few things for Mrs. Forman, but she'd actually broken down crying halfway through the store.

Hyde still felt bad about that. He'd asked her what the hell her problem was, and all she could do was sob about how stupid she was because she couldn't figure out the price per pound, or which fruit was good. He hadn't understood a word she'd said after that.

He was pretty sure he knew why he was with Jackie, despite their friends' misgivings and confusion. He didn't really blame them; it had taken him a while to figure out why the hell he was dating the pygmy sized cheerleader. At first, he'd been pretty sure it was just the forbidden nature of the thing: Steven Hyde dating a preppy rich girl? It didn't get much more off-limits than that. But he'd quickly thrown that idea out. It wasn't enough for what he had to deal with to be with her. It wasn't just that she pretty; Point Place might not have been NYC, but it had more than it's fair share of hot chicks. Hot chicks that would let him bang 'em because they all wanted to say they'd been with the bad boy.

Now he knew it was a combination of two things: her honesty, and her naivety. Yeah, she was a bitch. But she was an honest bitch. She was one of the first people to come out and tell him that his mom was trailer trash, and she wasn't surprised that the woman had disappeared. With Jackie, you got what you saw, and heard the truth, no matter how insulting or rude.

And a lot of what people took to be bitchiness in Jackie was just plain naivety. The girl –while pretty well schooled on the ways of men –was clueless about the rest of the world. She'd never had to scavenge for food in dumpsters, skimp money to pay for bills, or learn how to fast talk her way out of a beating. She'd never known what it was to go hungry, to wear the same set of clothes for a week, or to see pity in someone's eyes when they looked at her.

Steven smiled into her hair as he nuzzled closer to her, pulling her tight against his body. She seemed to fit so perfectly to his body, no matter what they did. Her head always seemed to slide right into the spot on his chest while his head settled just above hers.

He was going to keep that innocence in her. As long as he was around, she'd never learn what it was to beg for food, and steal what you couldn't beg. She'd never learn what it was to pray desperately to find a place to sleep for the night, even if it meant going home with a stranger. She'd never learn what it was like to sleep outside in the Wisconsin winter.

If he had to work his fingers to the bone, Jackie Burkhart would never know poverty, or pain anymore than she'd learned the week her father had gone to jail, and her mother abandoned her. She'd never have to worry again, if he had to work himself to death to make sure.


End file.
